by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
He smiled that smile. That sharp-toothed smile I had noticed earlier.
I gave him another shove and he fell back lengthwise, taking me with him. I wasn’t letting go, not yet. I crawled up over him and I rocked my hips as inch by inch he disappeared inside me.
My breath came in small gasps, and he growled deep in his throat in what I knew was a sound of satisfaction.
I fell forward, my weight on my arms and hands, one on either side of his face. I was open to him and he took advantage, licking my skin, every inch of it—neck, shoulder, arms—all except for the area that had been cut. Then he concentrated on my breasts, nipping the full flesh with sharp teeth and sucking my nipples into long, hard points.
I tried to control myself as I moved up and down his length. But try as I might to remove myself a step so that I could make this last, I was swept up in a rush of passion that made my ears ring and my inner flesh spasm.
I gave myself over to sensation and came in long, hard pulses.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hang on,” I gasped as I collapsed against him. “Give me a minute and it’s your turn.”
“No rush. We have hours until dawn.”
Right. Hours. As if he could last that long. The thought certainly was titillating, and I wondered how long we could last. It seemed no matter what I did, I couldn’t bring Jake over the edge. He made me come a second time and a third. And each time he became more inventive.
We were on the floor, then, and he was in back with me on my knees, my thighs opened to let him in. I tilted my hips and pushed at the same time he did. Once more he filled all of me. Surely he was ready….
His hands slipped around my hips, one going to my breasts, the other to my center. I was wet, so wet that we made soft, nerve-shattering sounds as he slipped in and out of me. He leaned over my body and nuzzled the soft flesh near my shoulder. He moved his head around, his lips dancing along my neck. I imagined he found my pulse with his tongue, then sucked down, gently at first, then with increasing pressure.
I felt a tension enter his body that hadn’t been there before. He moaned and increased the pressure on my neck, exciting me beyond control.
“That’s it,” I whispered, unable to hold on any longer. “Faster. Let go.”
I felt the pulsing start deep inside me, but this time he was the one. I let go, too. We came together.
I’d never had a night like this. I felt so weak I couldn’t move.
As if he sensed that, he cocooned me with his body and pulled me down to the carpet.
I lay there panting, thinking it was over. That we were both spent. But I was wrong. I could still feel him inside me, and if he’d reduced in size or hardness, I certainly couldn’t tell.
I tried to move away, but he caught me to him and whispered in my ear, “Don’t be in such a hurry. We’re just getting started.”
Enough to put fear in the heart of a woman who’d basically gone without for longer than she wanted to admit.
“I don’t understand. How can you—?”
“Don’t try to understand. Just enjoy the ride.”
With that, he rolled over so he was on his back and I was mounted on him again, but this time I wasn’t facing him. His hands curled around my hips and moved them so I rose and lowered on him.
The pressure began building once more.
I definitely enjoyed the ride.
This time when we floated down together, it was to collapse, to hold each other, to sleep. Dreamless.
When I awoke, I realized that Jake had put a pillow from the couch under our heads, and from somewhere, he’d gotten a throw.
As much as I hated to leave the cocoon, I knew I had to. I needed to report to the area office in a matter of hours. I needed to shower, to scrub the fake red color out of my hair, to set my thoughts straight.
I dressed quickly and quietly, not wanting to waken Jake. Now that my lust had subsided, I was seriously questioning my own actions. It wasn’t like me to be so impulsive.
I glanced over at Jake. He still looked gorgeous and inviting, spread out on the floor with little of him covered. He snored softly and turned as if seeking something.
Me?
But he quickly settled down and so did I.
I was trying to solve a crime, not hook up with a man. The connection I’d felt with Jake in the dark seemed weaker in the cold light of morning.
So I quietly let myself out of his place, looking back only once.
No worry…
Jake slept the sleep of the dead.
Dawn was fast approaching. The creature cried out softly, calling to the initiate in a high-pitched demand. Time to take shelter.
No response.
A bit more searching found her feeding on a piece of human trash. The idea was repulsive. The food was unwashed, unclean. The victim’s garments were soiled and the smell…
But of course the homeless were such easy pickings, even a rank beginner could hunt one. That was the problem. Too many homeless people in this city. The other had fed on one, too, with bad results.
A hard tug brought the new one upright. An expression of ecstasy hovered around her features, which were now smeared with a viscous red.
“Dawn approaches. Go…now!”
She mewled in protest and disappointment distorted her features, making her look like a spoiled child whose toy had been confiscated.
The next command was inaudible to the human ear.
But she was no longer human.
And she got the message. Giving her unfinished meal one more look of longing, she scurried away toward shelter.
Now, what to do with the body? This one needed to be hidden or the authorities would come after them with burning torches. No need to go through that again.
The hunger was driving this one to be careless. It couldn’t go on. But how to drive the point home to her when she hadn’t settled yet?
A vehicle turned the corner and inched down the street.
Time to blend with the shadows, up and out of sight…
The vehicle stopped directly below, and a rack of blue lights suddenly lit the darkened street.
Police! Damn!
Now there was no helping it. Now there would be trouble. Not that this was a new thing. It was the reason for moving from city to city, country to country. But choosing the right companion was sometimes difficult. Unfortunately, all weren’t created equal.
But why did this have to happen now? Why so soon? The city had barely begun to give up its treasures.
He’d kill the new one if she wasn’t dead already….
Chapter 11
I rolled into the office on all of four hours of sleep and a half pot of coffee. I’d barely signed in and checked to see if there had been any luck in picking up Annie—not—when I was told that Commander Caldwell had been looking for me and was in the break room.
When I found Mom there pouring a cup of coffee, the first thing she said to me was “We have another body.”
“What? Who?”
“Another homeless man. Patrol officers found him just before dawn. Same MO as with the other homeless guy.”
I sighed and threw myself into a chair. That was a mistake. My hip was sore from the fight the night before. “Has the M.E. seen him?”
“Autopsy’s in progress. Your commander is starting to wonder if he has a serial killer on his hands.”
Which made me wonder how long it would take before he started talking about calling in the FBI.
“Looks like we have more than one killer,” I mused, “though they may be working together.”
Before I could get too uptight about the FBI horning in, Mom changed the subject. “How did last night go at the bar?”
“Chung went missing.”
“No explanations?”
“Something weird is going on with the bar owner. Desiree told me she would take care of him, and I guess she did. She took care of him good enough to give him an alibi for the night Raven was murdered.”
; “You believe her?”
“Unfortunately.” She wasn’t going to like the next part. “And then after hours, I tracked Mowry and his vampire cult members back to where they’re holed up.”
“Shelley—”
“They had an innocent, someone who wasn’t a wanna-be vampire. They cut her to bleed her. We got her out of there before anything worse happened, then tried to find Annie. She was gone. Patrol hasn’t found her, either, and likely they won’t.”
“And you can’t do anything about Mowry, not at this point in the murder investigation,” Mom said, apparently in tune with me. “Wait a minute. You said we. Who’s the other part of that we?”
“Jake DeAtley.” I noted how fast Mom’s expression soured and my stomach clenched. Uh-oh. I didn’t remind her that I told her I would take care of checking Jake out myself…not that I’d had time to finish the task personally. “What did you find out about him?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what’s the problem? He doesn’t have priors or arrests.” Or a driver’s license or plates. “I checked.”
“When I say nothing, I mean nothing. Nothing on him at all. As far as the world is concerned, Jake DeAtley doesn’t exist.”
“Jake works at the bar,” I reminded her. “He has to have a social security number.”
“Wrong. No social. No driver’s license. No credit. Nothing. He’s simply not who he says he is.”
Remembering what he’d told me, that he was after the person responsible for his mother’s death, I saw that he might want to use a false identity if he was planning to act against the law. Not that the idea sat well with me. The whole hidden-identity thing worried me, even if I was in the same position. I knew my reasons. I wanted to believe his, but Jake’s pretending to be someone he wasn’t added another layer of deceit to the investigation.
Yet I didn’t want to nail him simply for lack of an identity we could verify. “Let’s not crucify him yet.”
“You’re giving him the benefit of the doubt? Why?”
“Last night, he fought by my side to get the girl out of that rat hole.”
“Fought? You had a physical altercation?”
“Okay, yes. I didn’t have a choice. But as you can see, I’m fine.”
We both fell silent and stared at each other.
I spoke first. “Look, I haven’t been acting recklessly.” At least not with the investigation. Jake was another matter, one I needed to sort out in private. “So I ran into some trouble while working the case. That happens. You know that.”
“What about backup?”
“They left before I did. The trouble was unexpected. And I had backup in Jake.” Not that I’d asked for his help. But I had taken what was offered. I wanted to think I would never have gone into the cult’s hideaway if I’d been alone…but I wasn’t sure that was true. “I was simply following the suspect to get a location.”
“Apparently, you entered that location.”
I told her about the supposed vampire’s nest under the railroad tracks. “I just wanted to scope the place out. The only reason there was a confrontation was because I heard Annie cry out and I realized what they were doing to her. Should I have left her to them?”
Mom shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose not.”
“After, I called Norelli and gave him the low-down. He said he’d arrange a stakeout on the place and put a tail on Mowry himself. You know I couldn’t arrest him without chancing blowing the murder case against him.”
Mom nodded. “You made the right call. About the reason I’m here. I stopped by to leave you a stack of files. I got them from Commander Aniceto. They’re on your desk. Maybe they’ll help you figure out who’s getting their kicks out of playing vampire before another person dies.”
I started when the V-word spilled from her lips. But of course she wasn’t referring to the real thing the way Jake had. And Aniceto must have turned over his cult-research files from when he’d worked the gang unit.
“Thanks, Commander. It’s good to feel like we’re in synch.”
Mom nodded and took her leave. I walked her as far as my desk, where a two-foot pile of teetering folders awaited me. Before I went through them, I found the report on Jake. Unfortunately, it shed no light on the subject. If records were the test, Jake DeAtley didn’t exist.
So I’d been with a ghost the night before? How spooky was that?
The lab results on Thora’s gargoyle pin were equally frustrating. Yes, there were fingerprints from two different people—undoubtedly Thora and possibly her killer—neither of which were in the data bank. At least I knew that if I had a solid suspect, I could try to match them later.
I turned to the folders from Aniceto. I spent the next hour going through every notation in the first file, searching for something new and helpful in the case. I couldn’t find anything useful in the articles about some of the well-known cults that had resulted in mass suicide.
When Norelli and Walker sauntered in, I said, “Hey, look at this loot. All kinds of info on cults. I’m willing to share.”
“You need busywork,” Norelli said. “So it’s all yours.”
I was glaring needles at Norelli’s back when Walker said, “I can spare maybe an hour after I make some calls.”
“Thanks. I’ll count on you, then.”
That Norelli left it to me was no surprise. Contrary to the way television depicted detectives, we really had individual caseloads. Rather than a single case at a time, detectives had lots of cases to work at once. I hadn’t been assigned a load yet, maybe because the Area 4 commander wanted me to prove myself again. When Norelli got on the phone, I knew he was playing catch-up with his load. Leaving this case to me? That would suit me just fine.
I’d gotten through that first file when Walker took a few from the stack. Opening the one on top, he mumbled, “Psychiatric evaluations of former cult members,” as he went back to his desk.
I opened another file, which gave me information on psychological manipulation and abuse, brainwashing and mind control, authoritarian groups, alternative and mainstream religions. More information than I could possibly process in one sitting.
So I decided to check the contents of each file to see if one stood above the others in the way of being helpful in this case. I found it halfway through the pile—articles about vampire cults across the country.
Four teenagers from Indiana involved in a vampire cult stabbed one of the girl’s parents to death. According to the sheriff’s office, all four teens claimed to be vampires. They admitted to human-blood-drinking rituals—they cut their arms and sucked each other’s blood.
In another incident, a college student murdered a young woman, cut out her heart and drank her blood because he thought it would make him immortal.
In a Georgia case, a mother was beaten to death by a vampire cult. A friend said the cult’s sire performed a blood-drinking ritual in a cemetery to induct, or cross over, the daughter as a fellow vampire. “The one crossed over is subject to the sire,” a witness said in a deposition. “The sire has dominance over that person.” A V, surrounded by a number of the same symbol obviously fashioned by different hands, was carved into the woman’s body—signs of the vampire clan.
Another cult member said his friend had been intent on opening the gates to Hell, which meant he would have to kill a large number of people in order to consume their souls.
I wondered if Elvin Mowry had any such notions.
I skimmed other articles, found like stories. More indications that cults used particular symbology to represent them. A pentacle. A Celtic cross. An ankh.
I read this article in full. According to the author, the symbols went back not decades, but centuries, and had shown up in various places in the world, on dead people who’d been drained of blood.
I began to wonder about gargoyles. I’d only seen the blackbird on Raven, of course. But LaTonya’s tattoo had been a winged gargoyle. And Thora’d had the gargoyle pendant.
I
got online and searched gargoyles. Gargoyles and grotesques of various sorts dated back four thousand years to ancient Egypt and represented the struggle between good and evil. Some believed they came alive at night. Wings allowed many of them to fly above the populace. Oddly, they were considered a symbol of protection. The word gargoyle, from the Latin gurgulio, had double meaning: both throat and the gurgling sound that water made as it passed through a gargoyle.
Or the gurgling of blood?
Had the women been marked as victims? I wondered, considering Raven’s blackbird might qualify to be included. Had someone been trying to protect them? Or were the gargoyles sheer coincidence, simply a Goth fascination?
I searched gargoyle and vampire together. The first several pages were mostly references to products and Vampire: the Masquerade, an increasingly popular role-playing game. Just when I was about to give up, I found a reference to an article in the London Times. I clicked on the link and read about killings of women relieved of blood through a slash in the inside of their arms. Several of those women had been tattooed with a gargoyle. The cases stretched over a period of decades and multiple countries. There was even a reference to a century-old cold case.
I printed the article, wondering what exactly it was that I had run into.
I got home ready to fall into bed for a couple hours of well-earned sleep before doing double duty. Silke was waiting for me, poking around in my fridge. I’d asked her to leave me a couple of outfits and makeup, but hadn’t expected her to be hanging around.
Part of me was still ticked at her for going over my head. But another part knew she’d done it out of concern, so I was going to give her a pass this once.
I asked, “Hey, what’s up?”
Straightening, she shut the refrigerator door. “I decided to wait for you. Do you know you’re out of, well, everything?”
Non-news. Since my favorite food was anything take-out, I was nearly always out of everything other than leftovers.
Except for cat food.